05/04/2014

Measure for Measure

Company B Belvoir, 2010

Photo
by Heidrun Löhr for Company B Belvoir.

Continuing his
examination of power in Shakespeare’s plays (following Julius Caesar, and the divisive and behemoth War of the Roses, both for STC), Benedict Andrews turned his
distinctive aesthetic vision and directorial style to this, one of
Shakespeare’s more problematic comedies. Set in a revolving hotel room,
complete with sheer curtains, functioning shower, toilet, and television, not
to mention video cameras operated by the cast, it took a long hard look at a
society where, as he says, “pornography has become mainstream, sex tapes of celebrities
are public fodder, politicians speak in the name of God; where all private
lives are under constant surveillance, where everything is numbered and
consumable.” Culminating in one of Shakespeare’s classic ‘wonder upon wonder’
revelatory endings, outrage is heaped upon outrage, and
it leaves is bewildered, morally and imaginatively. This is not so much
Shakespeare as Andrews’ stream of falling coloured confetti, his cluttered mise
en scene, his over-reliance upon video close-ups, and his hyper-intellectualisation
of everything which seems to have no rational explanation in his on-stage
world.